A Diary of Stupid Human Tricks.
Commentary on everything from Joe Average to international politics.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

The Looming Tower

I heard the most interesting lecture tonight, which I shall greatly simplify here: theoretically, one of the main reasons Al Queda has become and grown is the way Muslim society treats its women and men. In short, the women are segregated so the men are, to paraphrase, unsocialised, horny, lonely and angry.

Add to that, they marry late,sometimes not until they're into their 40s. Because they not only hang out almost exclusively with [embed]men, and rarely see women on the streets, they are also untouched by the "civilizing influence of women," so they go looking for a group of similarly horny, lonely, angry men.

Rather than changing social structure (impossible: ingrained and locked down by religion), they war instead.

The interview was on CBCs "Ideas" and was done by the author of The Looming Tower